Electronic commerce on the Internet has become commonplace. There are many merchants offering goods and services via web sites on the Internet, and an increasing number of consumers purchase goods and services on various Internet websites. In many cases, the electronic commerce transactions involve electronic content and physical goods. For example, many consumers purchase items such as books, compact disks (CDs) and digital video disks (DVDs) via the Internet. Increasingly, however, consumers are using the Internet to purchase electronic content such as information products, music or to gain access to web sites that provide news or entertainment stories.
More recently, the Internet is being used to engage in a wide variety of social networking between and among different individuals and online communities. When used by businesses to promote their goods and services to such individuals and online communities, this form of networking is called “social media marketing.” In many of these online social relationships, users share and identify recommended content for use and consumption by other users with similar interests, hobbies and/or backgrounds. It is this unique ability to share or “virally distribute” content with recommendations and referrals that now enables the Internet to be used as a highly social medium. Furthermore, this “viral” distribution capability can now be used advantageously by content promoters, such as performing artists, visual artists, video and film producers, and content distribution companies, to create creative works that can be circulated to a far greater number of prospects and partners than may have been possible previously with a distribution capability which was limited only to the content creator's current list of customers.
Current methods for achieving viral distribution of content focus on the use of electronic mail. However, a significant opportunity and need exists for enhanced capabilities to distribute content in a more immediate and engaging manner. One current approach that is used to distribute applications of limited functionality involves “web widgets.” A web widget is portable software that can be installed and executed within a hypertext-markup-language web page by an end user that does not require additional compilation. The most commonly used web widgets are discrete applications of limited functionality that allow users to turn personal content into dynamic web applications which can be shared on virtually any website. Current web widgets are limited to executing certain discrete applications as on-screen tools. For example, they are currently used to display on-screen clocks, event countdowns, auction-tickers, stock market tickers, daily weather reports and flight arrival information.
Notwithstanding their useful role in these types of applications, current web widgets are not used as self-contained electronic commerce platforms. Yet, there is a significant and rapidly growing need for web widgets with enhanced capabilities that will enable content owners to more effectively use viral distribution of multimedia content and to exploit social media marketing trends to engage in purchase transactions and other forms of electronic commerce directly with current and prospective customers from web widgets over the Internet and over the rapidly growing number of mobile networks and associated mobile devices.